


Underneath the Boughs of an Elder Tree

by RenderedReversed



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Deathly Hallows, Fairytale-esque, Happy Ending, Master of Death Harry Potter, Powerful evil sorcerer!LV-TMR, Wands, still trying to cover all my bases, wand maker!Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-18 23:22:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4724060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenderedReversed/pseuds/RenderedReversed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Once upon a time, in a faraway land, a long, long time ago—</i> </p><p>The story of the most evil sorcerer in the land...and his wand maker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Underneath the Boughs of an Elder Tree

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Spatzi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spatzi/gifts).



> For Spatzi, because you make me happy that's why.

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, a long, long time ago, before anyone ever remembered, there once lived a prodigious wand maker. So talented was he that the most evil sorcerer in the land came to him and demanded a wand.

“Make me the most powerful wand in the world,” he said, “or else, your life is forfeit.”

The wand maker was not one to be intimidated—rather the opposite, for he thought about denying the sorcerer’s wish out of spite—but he thought of his friends and his family, and knew none of them could defend against the threat of the evil sorcerer. Thus, following the sorcerer’s command, he went out in search of materials to make the most powerful wand in the world.

On his journey, the wand maker came across an ancient holly tree. It had glowed with a power so bright, he had almost mistaken it for a star, so the wand maker offered one of his prized possessions—his cloak—to the tree in exchange for wood to make a wand. It accepted, and thus with his new wood, the wand maker set off to find a core.

What would form the core of the most powerful wand on earth? The wand maker thought and thought, until he finally came upon an answer.

What was the most powerful power in the world? The power of life. If one cannot die, one can only live, and how did one go about defeating someone who simply would come back again? This decided, the wand maker told the evil sorcerer of his theory, and the sorcerer agreed wholeheartedly.

“Make me an immortal wand,” he commanded.

The wand maker, less for the sorcerer and more out of his own curiosity, made a wand with holly wood and phoenix feather. When he gave it to the sorcerer, however, the sorcerer rejected it.

“I am the most powerful sorcerer in the world,” he said. “This wand is not enough! I need a wand that is my equal.”

Privately, the wand maker thought that the _wand_ was more powerful than the sorcerer, and thusly the man could not wield it, but he kept those thoughts to himself and dutifully went about searching for a new wood and a new core. On his journey, he came across an aged yew tree whose height was so tall that it towered over the rest of the forest.

What was the most powerful power in the world, if not life? The wand maker thought and thought, and then came upon an answer. The only power that can oppose life was its opposite—death. Death was absolute. All things died eventually, and when they did, all that awaited them was what had and will await everyone else. All beings were equal in death, because no matter the case, death would always equalize them.

What stronger power was there than that?

So the wand maker offered his other prized possession—his ring—to the tree. It was a ring that held ties to the dead, a fitting offer for a tree grown so tall and so strong through the power of death. The tree accepted, and gave its best branch to the wand maker to make a wand.

What to put in the core, wondered the wand maker. In the end, he still thought phoenix feather was fitting—this would give the wand both associations with life and associations with death. There was a chance the two powers would neutralize the other, but it could also be said that they had a chance to _amplify_ when combined. So the wand maker set off, told the sorcerer of his plan, the evil sorcerer agreed, and the wand maker was put to task again.

“Make me the most powerful wand in the world, fit to be my equal,” the sorcerer demanded.

The wand maker privately pretended he did not hear the last part. Instead, he focused on his creation—what would become from a wand made of life and death? The two powers never touched, before. More curious than fearful, the wand maker set to work. When he was finished, he implored the evil sorcerer to test it.

Unsurprising to the wand maker, though frustrating to the sorcerer, the new wand did not work either.

“Are you truly the best wand maker in the land?” The sorcerer whirled upon the wand maker, certain that he had been lied to. The consequence, of course, would be death—but the wand maker was not inclined to die so soon, and so he answered.

“I do not know any other wand makers, and so I cannot judge whether or not I am the best of them,” the wand maker replied. “I am merely what I am—just as I appear to be. I made you two wands, and neither of them fit you. Are _you_ sure that you’re truly the most powerful sorcerer in the world?”

“I am not to be questioned!” the sorcerer cried, and with a slash of his wand, he threw a deadly curse at the wand maker.

Still, the wand maker was not one to be intimidated. He raised the wand of life and death, and politely asked if the curse could not hit him him. Respectfully, it did not. Instead, at the last second it angled away from the wand maker and sparked harmlessly against the ground.

“This wand is not to be questioned, either,” the wand maker retorted. “It is highly offended that you do not appreciate it, as is the first I made for you. If you ask me to make you another wand, I believe I might go mad with all the complaining they do about you.”

The evil sorcerer stared at him, confused and frustrated and, above all, curious. “How is it that you command that wand?” he asked. “It did not obey me.”

“It doesn’t like to be made a tool of,” the wand maker replied, blunt. “If you expect all things to obey power, then you do not understand power at all.”

Thinking it a joke, the evil sorcerer laughed and said, “Enlighten me, then.”

“Power may be the ability to have things done according to your will, but then the world would be a take-take world. Nothing would be done, because no one would want someone else to have power over them. True power is, in fact, a hidden, individual strength. This wand in my hand is the most powerful wand in the world, but anyone may use it, should they ask nicely.”

“I am an _evil_ sorcerer,” the sorcerer said, “what part of ‘evil’ implies _nice_?”

The wand maker shrugs. “That’s your business, not mine.”

“Fine,” the sorcerer said, frustrated. “Make me a wand that only I can use, that I can command, that will obey me—”

“Then it won’t be the most powerful wand in the world,” the wand maker reasoned.

“Make it as powerful as possible, then.”

“But that’s stupid!”

“You dare call me a _fool_? Get to work, or I’ll kill your entire family!”

And so, disgruntled and tired but nonetheless motivated, the wand maker set off yet again in search of new wood and a new core.

What true power was commanded and _obeyed_? That was not true power. True power was limitless, boundless, was tied to and connected by the threads of the universe. It did not bow, did not bend, did not even exist in a single form. The wand maker thought and thought. Truly, the sorcerer’s request was impossible, and yet still he continued his journey.

On his way, the wand maker came across a single elder tree. It spread its branches and leaves to the sky atop a hill, a solitary and lonely existence. The wand maker thought it looked much like a pillar of an ancient ruin, weary with time but still dutifully standing—fit to its purpose. What purpose was that, the wand maker didn’t know.

The elder tree’s strength was not an overt, blinding power like the holly tree, nor was it an obvious embodiment like the yew tree. It was a quiet strength, a hidden strength—the power of time. Time passed inevitably. Many things happened as time passed, and time did not directly touch any of them. It was an indirect facilitator, purely by its own nature. Time was passive, flowed and when met with an obstruction, merely glided around it like water in a stream.

The elder tree was lonely, so the wand maker went to sit beneath its boughs and offered his companionship.

“Who goes there?” the tree asked.

“Elder, it is I—Harry. Just Harry.”

“Not the wand maker? Not the most prodigious in the land? Not Harry _Potter_?”

“Elder, in front of you all titles melt away. I will not be the most of anything forever, nor will I make wands until I am dying on my deathbed. In front of you, I am just Harry—the only thing I will always be.”

“A wise answer from such a young child. Then, just Harry, why have you come here, to a place that holds nothing else but I?”

Harry explained his quest, how it first started with the evil sorcerer, the two wands he made, and then the ensuing conversation he had with his client. The elder tree sat silent for much of it, and at the end of his tale, Harry accepted the silence and leaned back against the trunk to rest.

When he woke up, the tree spoke.

“Just Harry, you say.”

“Yes, Elder.”

“I will give you wood. Your story is half of our trade—you must give me one other favor.”

“What would you like?”

“Your evil sorcerer will not be an evil sorcerer forever,” the elder tree replied. “You are correct—all things melt away in front of me. And so with a wand of my wood, he too will eventually become a sorcerer, and then a man, and then find his way to death. That is the path all things take, eventually—the path of death. Promise me that, when what he is melts away, that you will reclaim the wand you made, and give it back to me in exchange for a new one.”

“A new wand, Elder?”

“The wand you make now is fit only for an evil sorcerer. It will no longer work for him when he is no longer such, yes?”

Harry, thinking the logic sound, nodded his agreement.

“Do not tell your evil sorcerer of this bargain. For this wand, use my crushed berries as the core. Go, and tell him it is the most powerful wand in the world that an evil sorcerer of his stature can have.”

“Elder, I will.”

And so Harry went, returning to his wand maker status and telling the evil sorcerer he had finally found the necessary materials. Impatiently, the sorcerer again commanded him to make the most powerful wand he could that would still obey him.

“I don’t think you’ll have a problem with that, anymore,” was all the wand maker said before he got to work.

It took three days and three nights. By the fourth morning, the wand was finished. The wand maker immediately went to the evil sorcerer and implored that he try it. And so, much like a child of eleven getting his new wand, the evil sorcerer took it gingerly between his finger tips and waved it in an arc above his head.

Dark green sparks flew. Delighted, the evil sorcerer declared that this was the most powerful wand in the world—his equal—and that the wand maker, for his services, would be compensated with a life beside him under his protection.

Secretly, the wand maker wondered what the point of that was, but since his friends and family were still alive and breathing, he said not a word and went with the evil sorcerer, remembering his promise to the elder tree.

Years passed. The wand maker measured these in arcs of time, identified only through the phases the evil sorcerer passed through. There was the world domination arc, the reformation arc, the imperial ruler arc, the delegation arc…Harry saw them all, standing beside the evil sorcerer as he slowly grew and aged.

Truly, it was as if the gaining of the elder wand was the evil sorcerer’s rebirth. He was much a child at first, but then with knowledge and experience that he _should’ve had_ , but hadn’t in all his years, he grew.

At first, Harry was imprisoned in a gilded cage. He was given a lovely room in a lovely mansion, but could not leave the grounds. He was visited like a pet, sometimes given a job, often times not. There were books he could read, but each were handpicked by the evil sorcerer himself to ensure Harry was bound even in _knowledge’s_ way.

But then, with the passage of time, that changed. Harry went out—with the evil sorcerer, of course. From public appearances, to simply going _outside_ , and then to going out whenever he liked, with or without the evil sorcerer. It was a marked improvement that only continued to improve.

Harry became a wand maker again because that was what he liked. He made wands for government officials, for minions, for children and shopkeepers and the common folk.

It was a good time, not only for him but for everyone else, too.

…And then he fell in love.

Well, not ‘and then’—but he did fall in love, however or whenever it happened. He should’ve known that, in itself, was the beginning of it—the beginning of the end. Somewhere between intensely disliking the evil sorcerer, grudgingly accepting him as he was, becoming indifferent to him, and then sort of liking him, Harry found out he had tripped—just a little, or as some would say, just enough—stumbled, really, across an invisible line. And then he loved and he couldn’t quite stop himself from loving.

It wasn’t exactly a problem, until Harry found himself wishing that the evil sorcerer would forever remain evil…because if he was _evil_ , then he wouldn’t be a simple sorcerer, and if he wasn’t a simple sorcerer, he…

_All things melt away in the face of time._

But when Harry found himself watching the evil sorcerer heal a bird’s broken wing, and then create a bird bath out of thin air in their garden, Harry knew the evil sorcerer knew compassion, and was no longer evil. He was but a sorcerer now—no, not ‘but’; he was simply a sorcerer, no worse and no better than before. No longer evil, if that mattered to some, but Harry wasn’t entirely too sure what the title ‘evil’ addressed anymore. Maybe the evil sorcerer hadn’t been evil for a longer time than he knew.

Regardless, his sorcerer, evil or not, became only what he had been all along. It was like Lord Voldemort became Voldemort instead, though he was still regarded respectfully with the title.

Harry knew time kept ticking. All he could do in the end was stand by his side—by his lord, his love, his sorcerer’s side—and hope against hope that he never stopped being a sorcerer.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a wise decision to hope against hope.

On some particular day with no other great events, the evil sorcerer—no, the _sorcerer_ Voldemort, awoke to the surprise that his wand had mysteriously stopped working. Befuddled by this, especially as his wand had served him a good many years prior, he went to the one person who he knew would have an answer—the one who made it.

In other words, _Harry_ awoke to the dreadful surprise of his love standing at his bedside, holding his elder wand in his hand, and claiming—without rage or frustration or unreasonable madness, but rather with _just_ confusion that bordered on, dare he say it, _cute_ —that his wand no longer worked.

“Harry?” Voldemort asked, after a while had passed and Harry the wand maker had not replied.

“I’ll make you a new one,” he finally said, voice soft and resigned. “It will be just as powerful as the original, I promise.”

“Power is certainly nice, but will it _work_?”

Affection swelled in his chest, like the crest of a wave near the shoreline—coming from a long way off, gradually and inevitably with the passage of time.

“It will work even better for you, I think, than your last,” the wand maker said. “You will love it just as much, though in a different way perhaps.”

Voldemort scoffed. “ _Love._ Love my wand?”

“Care for it like you care for me,” Harry amended. It wasn’t yet time, he knew.

To that statement, the sorcerer nodded. That too signified the passage of time, the melting away of all other things to reveal the essence of a person.

It was a sad occasion, Harry mused, that deserved celebrating.

So, packing up his supplies and bidding his love a momentary farewell, the wand maker went on another journey—his fourth and last journey for the most powerful sorcerer in the land. He arrived at the elder tree of long ago with no obstacle he could not overcome, and upon settling down beneath its boughs, the tree spoke.

“So it’s time, _just_ Harry.”

“Yes, Elder,” Harry said, fond and filled to the brim with sorrow directly from the river of tears. “He is but a man, now. And soon he will be not even that—for we are all the same in death, man or woman, and he will simply _be_.”

“What is his name, this man of yours?”

“Tom Riddle, Elder,” Harry confessed. “He whispered it to me along with his vow of affection, and in turn I told him _my_ name just as well.”

“Names are sacred,” the elder tree agreed. “Your exchange is not without its worth, just Harry. In time, it will prove itself.”

Harry was not so sure, but he trusted the tree and he came for a purpose, so, lying down what once was the most evil sorcerer in the land’s wand upon the roots of the elder tree, he completed the promised exchange for a new branch of elder.

“For the core, you will find he has no need for it,” the tree told him before he left. “He is powerful enough that his core is ready, I believe, to hold its own. As yours has been. Farewell, just Harry, and may you find peace and rest in death.”

“We will see,” Harry whispered. He turned around and left for home.

The new wand, much like its predecessor, took three days and three nights to make. During this time, Harry was unsurprised to see Voldemort unbothered using wandless magic. The elder tree had been right in that respect after all—his core was strong and firm, attaining a state very few achieved. But that, perhaps, came with the passage of time and his return to Tom Riddle from Lord Voldemort.

When Harry took to calling him “Tom,” more than “Voldemort,” the man did not mind like he would’ve long ago. It filled Harry with a strange mix of happiness and sadness, but nothing could be done.

The new elder wand more powerful than the old one, imbued with the power of time that Tom now wielded, as unconsciously as it was. Harry respected this—it was unlike that of life and death, which he himself preferred, but it oddly fit. Clearer than ever, he saw Tom as he had seen himself during his prime.

In Harry’s opinion, the Tom of now _was_ his prime, but that went unsaid.

Time passed, allowing the gaps to fill in with memories both pleasant and sad. Harry knew like he knew his craft that the day would come soon—the inevitable, horrible day when time would melt away all masks, leaving behind essence and soon not even that. It reached the point that Harry could hardly bear to look at Tom.

“Is immortality so impossible?” the man asked him one day.

“Death visits all. Even immortal beings will come to their end,” Harry said.

“Is power not enough?”

The wand maker smiled, his expression stained with raindrops rolling down the windowpane of his cheeks. “Power is never enough. It could even be said that, in this case, power is a _consequence_ , not a factor.”

Tom stared. “You would know, then.”

“Some would say I should, yes.”

“The existence of the prodigious wand maker has lasted for over three centuries.”

“Quickly on its way to becoming a legend, I assure you,” Harry said, prompt in both tone and pose. “But then the most evil sorcerer in the land sought him out, and so confirmed his existence once more, and he lived for another century more than he should’ve.”

“The wand maker, or Harry Potter?”

Harry didn’t want to answer that.

“I always found it odd,” Tom said, shifting their conversation once he realized his companion would not reply, “that a wand maker did not have his own wand.”

“It is in my heart now, where many things that have eroded with time lie.”

“A wand does not simply disappear.”

“A long time ago,” Harry began, “there was a young boy named Harry Potter. His wand was holly, phoenix feather core, eleven inches. Nice and supple. It served him well, until one day the boy grown to a man discovered it would no longer fit him. His wand, beloved by him, then made a choice. It gave up its existence in exchange to stay with the boy and protect him forever, even when he received a new wand. Sentimental as he was, the boy did not use the new wand—instead burying it once upon a time on a lonely hill, where atop it now sits an old elder tree.”

“How long ago was this time?” Tom couldn’t help but ask.

Harry shook his head, raising his hand to scrub away at his eyes. “Before the stories of the prodigious wand maker went around, certainly.”

“So I will go, and you will stay? Is that what you mean to tell me?”

The wand maker heard the fear hidden behind the wall of words fairly easily. He violently shook his head, wet cheeks chilling with the movement. “I would not like you to be alone. I don’t even think _I_ could stand to be alone again, for all my friends and family are gone again, and I haven’t the opportunity this time around to make new ones. No, actually—I have. _You_ have been my friend. _You_ have been my family. I would very much like to stay with you.”

“But I am to go where you cannot follow,” Tom pointed out. “Elderberries are, after all, poisonous, and I have long been their consumer.”

 “Death comes to all.”

“Even its Master?”

Harry slowly shook his head. “I don’t care much for such a presumptuous title. Not only do I think it’s gravely embellished, but because it is inherently false. The only Master of Death is Death itself. However, Death is endless and infinite, and confining it to a term such as ‘Master’ is a dirty lie indeed. Make no mistake; death comes to all, even me—what gift I have been given, if it really is a gift, is the gift of choice.”

“Would you truly waste such a thing on _me_?”

Harry frowned. “What is there to waste? You are the most powerful man in the world.”

“A wise, impudent wand maker once told me that true power is a hidden strength, and in order to remain hidden, it often times may  appear under the guise of uselessness or pointlessness, or some such misleading appearance. What say you?”

“ _I_ say who are you, and what have you done to my narcissist sorcerer of a lover?”

Tom closed his eyes, smile coming slow to his lips. Slower than usual. Harry’s frown pulled deeper.

“You’ve done much over the years to humble me. It would be a shame if I refused to give you the final pleasure of seeing _some_ fruits of your labor.”

There was a brief moment of silence filled with only the sound of breath before Harry spoke again.

“If you’ll take me, I will go with you.”

Tom lifted his wand. Green light filled the wand maker’s vision.

“Is this how I shall prove my love to you?” murmured Tom.

Harry smiled. “I believe your love is more than my power over life and death. You prove nothing to me; you prove _everything_ to yourself.”

“Impudent until the end, I see.”

“See you on the other side, Tom.”

“Yes. See you there, Harry.”

Green, green, green was all he saw, until he saw no more and, quite simply, _was_ no more. That was, of course, until warm, callused fingers grasped his and pulled him past the final boundary line of which he straddled.

The evil sorcerer was no more. Neither was the prodigious wand maker.

Harry, personally, preferred it that way.

**Author's Note:**

> Testing, testing, one two three...
> 
> -waves sheepishly- Um, hi. I managed to write this during my academic downtime, which is good but also bad because it's weird and I don't know? But anyway. Yes. I don't think I'll be very active for the next few...months...maybe...
> 
> I probably won't be able to commit any time to working on chapters for any number of fics that are in progress, is what I'm saying. The most you'll see from me is little oneshots like this. Not sure if you'll see any series oneshots either. I don't really have much time to plan right now.
> 
> Putting serious news aside, did I mention I really love MoD!Harry? If there were more fics with him around that are conveniently for the TMR-LV/HP pairing, that'd be great and I'd be really happy yup. ♥


End file.
